What Ever Happened to all the Old Racist Whites from those Civil Rights Photos?

What ever happened to those white folks from those old photos?

A few months ago from this day of publishing, I had an interesting discussion with a white guy at work. The subject of riots came up. Pretty much, he attempted to place a mass association of “riots” to Black Lives Matter protesters. Fascinated with his thoughts (which severely lacked critical thinking), I threw him a critical thinking question:

“Do you think that Black Live Matter protesters, command riots?”

I had to repeat the question because he was in total shock, as if he had walked from a train wreck, because he didn’t expect to engage in critical thinking.

Do you think MLK changed this white man’s bigoted social ideology? Any of them?

He answered no, which was smart; they do not command riots to occur. It’s a bit stupid to suggest such. While he did concede the point that BLM do not command riots, he pointed out that the riot association is strong because that’s all the data the media supplies him (you don’t think that’s without intent?) and still, overall, if the protests were PEACEFUL then change would occur. I pointed out that there’s numerous peaceful protests, they occur all the time. I as a street photographer (and freelance journalist) have been to many, and can literally report on a lot of knowledge. I mentioned one 60 miles from our location that happened months prior. I also mentioned what the media does when they are peaceful protests and vigils — they leave without reporting. Still, he was unmoved, because to him credentialed media > freelance journalism. So okay.

“Do you think that all whites, or the majority of white people, were behind MLK off of one speech?”

At this point, with the strength of his disdain for Colin Kaepernick and his peaceful protest, I had finalized the convo — I told him that technically, if this were August 1963, he would have been the regular white guy who hated, loathed Martin Luther King. I was compelled to tell the fellow that white people were NOT all on board when Martin Luther King arrived on the scene. I had to tell him that he in his white self, technically, was the status quo, and his feelings of Kaepernick and MLK would be congruent.

“The truth is, you would have been one of the ones completely antagonistic to those protesters back then buddy.”

How many whites you know who would love to do this to any random black protester?

Being that I linked him (and for the most part, most of White America) to those angry, white supremacy defending whites in all the old Civil Rights photographs, I began wondering, where in the hell did they all go? What ever happened to them?

I began collecting more of these photos. Being a modern day street photographer essentially crating digging older street photographs made me realize that I’m a part of an old, long lasting American tradition — free press. The task made me feel like I’m discovering my roots as a professional. All those photos. All those faces.

The faces were the same faces we see modern day. All those angry, yelling, vulgar white faces. What ever happened to them? When the Civil Rights Act was placed into law, did all these people just vanish? Did they all out of nowhere, realize that they were wrong, and we were right, and stopped their racist thoughts and ideologies?

Look at all of the white people in defense of white supremacy back then. This is a metaphor for what happens to “SJWs” on social (and conservative) media. Nothing has changed.

I highly doubt that the white faces in the first Civil Rights Era just automatically let go of their racist ideologies. Those people only accepted the Civil Rights social change with contempt and learned how to BEHAVE when laws changed. These old racist white supremacists, similar to insurgents after the collapse of the Iraqi Army in 2003, only laid low, kept their racist ideologies, and waited. During this wait, there was a refinement of white supremacy. White supremacy — racism in America — had to adapt, and it did.

Do you really think this young white male all of a sudden began loving MLK?

While the fellow did not get indignant and rant and rave (probably because he knew facts were on my side), many white men would do just that. While there’s very few white folks today that would boldly state “keep America white” or something, similar to this photo on the left, the facial expression is still the same. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that same face in white men when I speak on white supremacy.

Instead of bluntly proclaiming the defense of white supremacy, white men nowaday seek to finesse the same ideological talking points. Similar to placing an assassin in a dress, these white men seek to soften up the image of white supremacist ideologies.

Being that white supremacists always preferred hoods and masks, nothing really has changed. Instead of preferring white hoods, they now prefer white lies. The white, Ku Klux Klan hood, while still existing in reality, has long been abandoned for a metaphorical one: double-speak, coded language, deflections and transference in discussion. The empty claims of colorblindness while still acknowledging and observing color differences. The tone policing. The clinging relationship to ancient symbolic relics of a racist past, all while denying racism modern day. This blatant dishonesty towards the state of nonwhites in America, serves as a new and improved white hood or mask to shield responsibility and accountability of the State of race relations. The common German is more accountable and observant of their collective crimes against Jews than the white American is towards their crimes against black and native peoples.

Couldn’t all these white people be, technically, considered accessories to murder? Look at their faces.

This is what happened: When the Civil Rights laws passed, all these racist whites from these photos (and those who were never photographed, which is numbered to be far more) just sat back and never talked about it. They decided then and there to take their sins silently to their graves, all while letting their grandchildren lie or play stupid, pretending it never took place. I did it myself; wondered where my dad was in 1963. 1965. 1970. It’s a shock if white people never thought to think about where their parents were during all of this. Much like racism itself, I’m sure these whites NEVER talked about it. Never brought it up. I said it before… while we as black people are trying to discover our ancestors, white people are stuck trying to forget and bury their klancestors. Sure, there are a few white folks from this old era, telling their racist stories on theirdeath beds. Trying to make amends, looking for that forgiveness bug that makes the black community so (in)famous.

For the most part, the majority went to hell hating people because of their skin color, which will be the same destination for modern day whites who share the same congruent disdain for a mass of people fighting for their humanity. As far as these old photos go, nothing has changed. Tomi Lahren, for example, practically gets paid to be the yelling angry white lady in the article’s face photograph. White people will continue to attempt to silence abolitionists like myself. Unfortunately for them, I’m not going anywhere.

Like this:

The Soul Brother #1 of a Kind. Consequentialist street photographer abolitionist writer/speaker who stands for any oppressed peoples. I do it because every man and woman deserves freedom of thought -- especially black folks.

In the White Nations that are left, how many of them are being force fed multiculturalism? How many of them are being force fed immigrants and refugees?

There is not one single completely White Nation on this earth.

There is one Christian City State called Vatican City.

There are dozens of Black And Asian Nations. There are a good dozen Arab Nations. There are a couple of dozen Muslim Nations.

There is a Thai Nation. There is a Khmer Nation. There is a Japanese and a Korean Nation. There is Saudi Arabia for a specific group of Arabs. There is Jordan which is the true Palestinian Nation. There is a Turkish Nation.

Israel is decried as it is perceived as a White Nation even though “White” or Sephardic Jews are a minority there. Europe is being pressed to take in refugees in mass.

You find it odd that White people would feel threatened by becoming marginalized in their historical homelands when the rest of the world is DEFIANTLY NOT becoming multicultural but more and more Nationalist and Supremacists in their ideology.

White supremacy will continue to exist right alongside Arab, Muslim, Chinese and all of the other Supremacists thought processes, ideologies and creeds.

This will not change.

And your grouping of all White people into one little unforgivable bed makes you a Black version of what you supposedly fight against.

“You find it odd that White people would feel threatened by becoming marginalized in their historical homelands when the rest of the world is DEFIANTLY NOT becoming multicultural but more and more Nationalist and Supremacists in their ideology.”

I don’t find it odd at all. As globalization continues to drain, rather than serve, the working class, to the benefit of the world’s most wealthy, I see it as completely natural behavior to want to shrivel up and duck into one’s turtle shell. That would be a perfectly fine solution, if only the turtle that never left it’s shell didn’t eventually starve to death.

A more long term solution is to work together to bend globalization towards the majority’s needs. That won’t happen with thinking that prioritizes the maintenance of racialized and religious nations.

Perhaps if they can truly create something that they can call their own instead of stealing others all of time, then maybe someday they can create a nation of their own. I really don’t understand supremacy. Those who claim to be white supremacists are the most self conflicted people there are. They can hate all other ethnic groups, but still can rely on people of color to do their jobs while they profit. You can’t escape multiculturalism. Face it and deal with it. It’s all around you. People who are not willing to be open minded about the concept are the most small minded and uneducated individuals there are. It’s a new dawn and a new day. If you can’t get with the program, consider yourself left behind and a waste of time to humanity.

while i agree with that this pieces’ “white people” this and that rant is a bit broad brush, you sound like what this piece is talking about trying to remix and skirt the point being made with mainly baseless points. “White people would feel threatened by becoming marginalized in their historical homelands when the rest of the world is DEFIANTLY NOT becoming multicultural but more and more Nationalist and Supremacists in their ideology.” WHAT?!!! These ALL WHITE homelands you speak of historically have been and are now the source of the most influential actions in terms of colonization of these predominantly non-white places you rattled off (from India, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Carribbean Islands, North America, Australia, Africa )- the affairs, definitely in terms of governmental policy and powers that they hold and our able to act upon are directly and indirectly significantly shaped by these historically white national homelands in Europe (Germans, English, Dutch, Belgians, French, Spain, Portugal). Native populations there prior to the influx of European immigrants are the ones that have historically been the opppressed and left with the short end of the stick and are the ones who should feel threatend (hell, that word does their condition no justice); research the outcomes of the native people of the Pacific Island, Africa, Australia, North & South America, Middle East, etc. prior to the arrival of the poers that be from these respective European nations.

One issue with this rebuttal is that this land was never white peoples to begin with(they definitely came from a land which they should of stayed and can go back for all I care). Another issue is your argument isn’t an excuse for the mindset majority white people have in this country and most definitely not the behavior displayed by whites. So let’s not try to make whites the victims here. Instead of taking up all this space with your research on this nation and that nation how about you research why whites hate people of color so much? Write a dissertation on that

The white nation wouldn’t have resources if they didn’t take from the other nations of color. The white nation is a nature abomination because genetically it’s recessive. The white nation has fought against science, logic and reason to become a world power. They’re reign has been the most destructive to the earth all together.

America did not originate as a white nation. There were decidedly non-white people in this country before it was stolen from them. So it’s laughable that you think the USA is supposed to be the designated “white nation,” even if such a thing were supposed to exist.

There are no “white” nations because “White” is not a national identity nor is it an ethnicity. All of the former christian nations decided that Freedom of religion was more important than state-forced religion…. This article is about White people in America who have hidden their racist pasts. Thats it… its not that deep.

But it’s not their home land. It belonged to Native Americans. And black people have been here just as long as whites. Blacks actually built this country along with whites. If whites had such a problem with black people wanting their fare share of the American dream, then they shouldn’t of brought them here, and farm their own lands and picked their own harvests

Some White people are so fucking delusional on this thread and will make up any lie to suit their mental sickness of savage nature…sarcastically back then they’d say” oh we were helping him” but even if they didn’t beat him, they sure took a moment for a damn smiling photos op..the typical great white SAVIOUR complex.. like those that say slaves should have been glad the white man stole them from Africa to be in this well built country…Mfkr! THE SLAVES ARE THE ONES THAT BUILT THIS COUNTRY THROUGH LABOR AND IDEAS…Im almost bout sick of the virus that only major identity is destruction and chaos through greed and ego….and In 2017 pure deflection and a false sense of superiority

Facts are stubborn and of course TRUTH will always offend LIARS and IDIOTS. I am glad you mention the Vatican as a Christian City. I was laughing my head off. I suppose you were not taught your history. Ever heard of THAT FAMOUS THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS. Why do you think Europeans were the ONLY PEOPLE RUNNING AWAY FROM THEIR HOMELAND in the fifteen century, to the detriment of EVERYONE ELSE.The tragic thing is that the MAJORITY of whites after having being PSYCHOLOGICALLY PREPPED by their Europeans FEUDAL LORDS under orders from the HOLLY ROMAN EMPIRE, you know the Vatican, the pope, have sold their souls for scraps and made themselves the ACCOMPLICES to the WORST CRIMES IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Europe being such small place would be so rich while the rest of world is not? You see every crime starts with a LIE, and of course the bigger the crime, the bigger the LIE. White supremacy is A LIE. Your life is a LIE. Ever heard of John Brown? An HONORABLE MAN if there ever was one. Do you know that in Haiti, that nation where African slaves defeated Napoleon’s army to BREAK THE BACK OF SLAVERY, John Brown is celebrated with his name adorning one of the biggest thoroughfare? The majority of whites need to ACQUIRE A CONSCIENCE because as a student of history I can tell you that the future does not bode well, just like the FAKE JEW zionists are digging their own graves and are making people take another look at pre-world war two Germany. This is a MORAL CALL.

Well, white people did this to most of the people mentioned in your response for centuries. They made their historcal homeland rich by robbing other nations. They invaded other nations, stole the land,(USA, South Africa, etc.) and call it their own. Is that not threatening other non whites? The immigrants that they are “being forced” to take on are simply going to where the wealth of their historical homelands was taken after it was stolen from them. The white nations are the ones who started all this and now are upset that they are experiencing what they wrought upon other nations for centuries.

What utter BS! Do you know what people were responsible for the most violent pillaging of lands and owned the most slaves in the history of the world? Bet you don’t. And I bet when you look it up you won’t comr back here and post the TRUTH either. Feed your head with real history for Pete’s sake. Otherwise you are simply spreading crap in your wake.

Except this wasn’t their nation to begin with. That’s one. And two, they brought the black man here to serve them. Those with enough conviction worked to overturn such a thing. You stole land from the red man and built it on the backs of the black man to then turn around and act like you were here first and built it yourself? Fool ass.

Convenient that you are breaking these countries up into “nations” a “Thai nation ” a “Korean nation” Really? Because they are countries, and their citizens make up the nation. We are The United States of America, and our citizens are part of our nation. We have been a nation that since Europe began colonizing, has its growth based not only by reproduction but on immigration and naturalization. We are an American nation and a nation of immigrants. It’s about time you get used to it because if you are white, YOU did not come from here and YOU are descendant of an immigrant. You are finger pointing and a hypocrite.

You clearly confuse ethnocentrism with supremacy. White racist exercise hate and separation due to xenophobia, where as these non white nation states exercise the idea that their food, music, and ways are better than there neighbors. Chinese were exclusive and uninviting for a while but even they made amends to contribute to the silk road.

It’s not about what ppl make up what portion of a country’s population, it’s who’s in power of the law and the economic systems in that country. Yes there are a few “black” countries but their under control either financially, religiously, or legislatively by an white ran country you since this little time period of colonialism. Which in turn left the bulk of these countries in 3rd world status especially after they raped the natural resources and its ppl.

From that view, this is supposed to be a native American “nation”. But a bunch of immigrants (murderers, crooks, rapists, and whatever else Donny boy said about immigrants) stole the land, raped and murdered and pillaged, and claimed it was a “Christian” nation.

Might be easier to take this bull if white people hadn’t forced colonization on just about every non-white country you mentioned. Might be easier to sympathize with your negative views of multiculturalism if the white colonials hadn’t committed genocide against the north and south American indigenous people. Might, but probably wouldn’t, make your narrow-minded bigotry easier to process if the white colonials of the Americas hadn’t forced slaves from other countries to work on this continent. Might make sense if the Christian nations of past centuries hadn’t slaughtered non-believers, non-whites, Christians of differing values, and each other because their religion gave them the encouragement needed to view non-believers as anything other than human. You want a white Christian nations, you should move back to where your ancestors left, re-learn the language, re-learn for citizenship, and then attempt to change that system. Because this one is a melting pot of multiculturalism ideals and doesn’t need you.

Compared to how many weren’t….There were like 2. The writer did not discount who was there for MLK. Reread this and cone back with a better conclusion. You sound hurt. There are pictures right here. There are pics all over the web. MLK was hated by many white. Many, Many, whites. Let’s stop the madness. Please. You’re trying and you’re failing.

“They” are NOT “NEVER” talking about what their grandparents and parents did. They are proud of their culture! They are actually teaching them (their children), to do it differently by KILLING blacks with kindness. The mistake many people make is thinking the children are not the same as the parents and grandparents. “Let’s make America great again!” The only way to do that is to go back in time! When was it ever great for blacks? Centuries of barbaric treatment from the same people. Wake up!

They are helping him, the man in the sweater is holding a bloodied rag and the man holding him is crying. This is an image of the same three men right after the photograph in the article was taken: http://i.imgur.com/CX82hf2.jpg

The guy has a bloody rag in his hand. They are holding him up. Looks to me like they are helping him.

White people were the first abolitionists in America. White people voted FOR the Civil Rights Act. White people ended slavery. Nothing positive that has occurred in America as concerns Black people would have been possible without White people.

But go ahead and hate all of us.

Be the Black version of the KKK members of the South [and Indiana]. That’ll show us. lol

I interpret this photo of showing off their handiwork. I do not believe they would be proudly taking a photo or smiling if they were trying to help an obviously unconscious man. I am in tears and ashamed for this country as I look at these photos. Like the Holocaust we must not forget the cost to our humanity during this fight for equality.

I researched this and it actually appears to be true. There are other photos of the same men helping him leave the area. The smile may be what is unsettling here, and I agree it is a weird situation in which to smile, but there are people who just automatically smile when a camera is in their face.

I’m not defending white folks and I was ready to believe the implication of the photo, but I am a big fact checker when given reason to be. A quick image search cleared this one up.

Johnny Silvercloud, the caption states: “How many whites you know who would love to do this to any random black protester?”

What, how many whites do I know who would love to help a random Black protester who was just savagely beaten get home safely? Is that what your caption is trying to say? Because that is what these two men did.

Fix that one picture and you have an essay worth quoting. Leave it in and your whole message is off. You cannot mix truth and lies and come out on top.

I agree with you on this… Look at the evidence. If these guys beat this man then they would have blood all over them as well. Also why even hold the guy up unless they were trying to help him. They would just leave him laying on the ground while standing over him with ‘power’.

Oh please, what an untruth on the man trying to help the beaten man. He helped beat him, then proudly posed to take the picture of his action. I participated in the Civil Rights Movement & March on Washington. I know the truths on these pictures.

he wasn’t smiling, he is crying caught in a weird pose by the camera. there is a link to another picture showing the two helping him walk down the street in one of the above comments. Please click on it

It’s a bit fascinating how white folks are more into exonerating these two white men versus the overall point of the millions of white men who either beaten, lynched, or fostered the society that permitted millions of whites to maim, mutilate, murder and terrorize black people.

Johnny, I think more the moral of this particular sub-thread, is: Careful what picture you use as it can derail the conversation. May sure it DOES support the point you intended to make with it. See how the thread loses it’s initial meaning and then becomes about the pic itself and what it ‘really’ shows. One has to be very careful of the facts and supporting ‘evidence” of the facts, in these cases or they will be exploited to weaken the message.

There’s nothing that is stated that those two men did it. The fact of the matter is, white people did it in the name of whiteness, and white people today are more interested in exonerating two white men who don’t need exoneration, versus the overall situation at hand.

Yes, the natural reaction is to pose for the camera with a wide grin smile (man on right) or a cold, cakcukated gaze (man in left) when helping a man who had beaten nearly to death. He actually looks as if he may be dead. Yep, that exactly what you stop and do when ‘helping’ someone.

Arent most of them Evangelicals. Have you heard the hatred, indifference and sanctimonious lies spewed from the pulpit? I;m looking at 1st baptist Dallas and the ilk who with lack of counsel run to Fox News o spew bile

Wow, thanks for such a thought provoking post. I agree that many of them went into the shadows but some did learn. I remember seeing one on Oprah that came out on her show and apologized for the man he beat for being black. I believe it was during the Freedom Rides. I like to think that others did the same thing.
I was born in 1967. I am white. My dad was in the military. My dad was from the south. My ancestors had slaves. I am not proud of that but it was accepted at that time. It wad expected. I was raised colorblind. It wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I really saw racism first hand and it was shocking for me.
You are correct BLM does not mean violence. I hate that the media only shows the violent protests. My mom, kids and I have been to numerous protests (for different topics) in the past year and none have been violent. The media makes it look like all are violent and then the people start talking Blue Lives matter like that changes things.
Thanks again for sharing your view. I just wish we could all accept we are all people. Honestly, my focus now is LGBTQ as my middle kiddo is in that group but I don’t understand hate at all.

No. I do care. I dislike all hate. I care very much about all people. I didn’t say my focus will never be on racism. It is definitely a hot topic and I wish i could make it all go away. I don’t understand hate for matters that are beyond our control. We are all human and no one is better than anyone else due to anything more than behavior.

You seemingly are just looking for a reason to hate someone who doesn’t hate you. Also, I understand why she would want to fight for her child. 1) She is a mother and 2) Women are marginalised and POC are tortured, tormented, and murdered without mercy. Even with these injustices a majority of both those groups join forces with their aggressors to then torment LGBT people no matter their gender or race. She confronts hate and therefore goes where she is needed and wanted. With comments like yours it doesn’t seem she is wanted here.

This is a beautiful post. Tragic and poignant. I wish I could have watched the facial expression of that man change from smug superiority to defeat. It had to have been glorious.

Nobody is less than and nobody deserves to have their humanity systematically stripped away. We need to work together and not punish the kind person directly in front of us because they share skin color with people who have wronged us.

If you see what I am saying as judgmental, then perhaps you are unclear on the meaning or you are just throwing it out there to be rude. Also, I was not talking shit in the slightest.

My life has been far from perfect. I am not even sure what you mean by “perfect life.” As a child, I was hospitalized multiple times because of getting beaten for being assumed to be gay. As an adult, I was nearly killed coming out of the hospital for a routine checkup for being gay. An especially idiotic thing to beat someone to a bloody pulp with your bare hands when they are walking out of a clinic in the gay area. I waited until I saw open wounds on the hands used to inform them that I had HIV, something their anger did not let their mind register completely until after a few more punches. They ran to their car while shouting, “We better not have it or we will sue you!!” This event happening shortly after a big local court case that made it possible to charge people who have HIV with murder if they knowingly (and sometimes unknowingly) pass it to another person.

This is just a fraction of a fraction of my life, however I do not focus on past. I find that looking behind me makes it so that I ignore what’s currently in front of me and can’t truly have a future. I refuse to be a victim of circumstance. To be honest, how imperfect or perfect you think my life is or was has nothing to do with it. Life is life, it is imperfect and complicated. Choose to live in your past while comparing it to the past of others. Some people want a better future though and are working toward it.

I do not need to prove anything to you on what I do to help the oppressed. If you require it to be all or nothing, tell me, when is the last time you stopped people from using gay slurs around you? When was the last time you went to a rally for the rights of gay people? When was the last time you went to vigil for the murder(s) of gay or trans people? You don’t get to demand something you do not practice yourself. Those questions are rhetorical, and honestly the answers do not matter. I am certain you have your hands full with all the bullshit you have to deal with. Let’s not add to the bullshit. I am not your enemy, regardless of my skin color.

The photo of the two white men holding up the bleeding black man is actually a photo of those white men helping the protester. It’s a famous photo. In addition, you can see a napkin in the hand of the man on the left. It’s bloody from where he was wiping the man’s face.

HE’S GRIMACING/CRYING. Do your research! Don’t be like the right-wingers who don’t look up facts. End of story. Let’s move on to the more important part of this article which is that racism is still VERY prevalent in the United States and white people don’t get it still.

No. Not this time. Im a black man of reasonable intelligence. All the evidence from the 2 photos I saw indicated they were helping him. Im not sure is was a smile. All the body language indicates them helping and him allowing it…

This a topic that has followed me since those pictures were current. It has deep personal meaning for me. Huge turning points in my life intersected with the struggle for civil rights. I worked in the movement, and eventually retired from it. And I worked with, for, under and against the people that are described.

They are still around, and they exist in all age groups. They are not going away. The struggle is how you deal it.

As a college student preparing for a career in community organizing, I had three black organizing professors. I asked them all the same question, will a white kid like me be able to organize in the black community? Two of them said, “yeah, blah blah blah”, and the third one called me out, and said “no, and “if you really want to help the black community you will go organize in the white community and help them not be so damn racist”. He wasn’t my favorite, I certainly wasn’t his, but in the end I took his advice.

That was 40 years ago, and now I got stories that would fill volumes.

But the paragraph where you say, “This is what happened: When the Civil Rights laws passed, all these racist whites ….. just sat back and never talked about it. They decided then and there to take their sins silently to their graves, all while letting their grandchildren lie or play stupid, pretending it never took place. … Much like racism itself, I’m sure these whites NEVER talked about it. Never brought it up. ”

That paragraph is as far from the reality as you can get. But what it tells me, is that white racists have been keeping their secrets much better than I imagined. I didn’t realize you were black until the end of the article. But the fact you were having the conversation described in the beginning of the article with a “lite-racist” white guy is a good sign. All those little conversations add up over time. It creates change, albeit ever so slowly, eventually over generations, over multiple lifetimes.

People tend to flag factual mistakes. It’s why accuracy is so important, as otherwise your larger message can get lost, or undermined by what gets perceived as historical revisionism.

But I don’t in any way think this ignores or trivializes the larger message of the piece. If anything, maybe what is needed is a law college professor (or two) willing to conduct a mock trial of all of those “innocent” bystanders at the lynching scene. I fully agree they’re complicit in murder. I’d even wager that with some digging most of them could be identified.

Which brings me to this – has anyone ever gone back and identified every last plantation and property where slaves were housed? File a class action sit demanding lost compensation for labor and property – compounded for inflation. That would be a lot harder to dismiss than vague concepts of reparations, then you’d have hard numbers supporting the claim.

While some people may be students of history who want to make sure that we know the context of an image before we attempt to analyze the content, others are gleeful or eager to point out errors in the hope that the circumstances of the other photos can be “explained away” as well. Given the ages of the photos, most of the participants are probably aged or dead, but their thoughts live on in their children and grandchildren, and their actions have certainly become acceptable again. Change the clothing, and any of those folks in the background could be Tea Partiers.

They didn’t just die or stay silent. They taught their children hate and fear. They teach their grandchildren hate and fear.They often beat that fear and hate into their kids, hoping it would stick. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. In any case, racism must be defined as a mental illness and appropriate treatment devised.

The picture not the point of this article. Why are we trying to avoid the point he made with Grace and dignity. The point is that we are still fighting for just civil rights not even equal right just her people to be treated civilly.

Looking at it a second time it does appear to be a cringe not a smile. However the moment caught can lend itself to a smile and a trophy photo op. In my humble opinion I feel it’s two men rendering care and assistance. Tough call but thats my interpretation.

My father is a racist and bigot. While I love him, his words and actions are never acceptable. I had to actually sit him down and explain that he could not come into my home and make racist statements in front of my children. If he did, he was not welcome into my home. Racists hide behind a stone wall of ignorance, protecting their anger and fear from reason and rational thought.

Those racist whites are now the Democrat party. They sold a bill of goods that goes like this: you non-whites can’t compete with whites economically and socially so sell your souls and votes to us and we will give you free stuff courtesy of the taxpayers. They did this knowing that it would ruin the black family unit and lead to lots of single mothers. They knew that lots of single mothers would eventually lead to catastrophic problems in the black community. Instead of listening and following MLK’s advice the black community took the democrats bait and swallowed hard.

You are saying that “free stuff,” by which I assume you mean welfare, caused more single mothers? How do you think this happened? Most researchers think that extreme employment discrimination facing Black men and over-incarceration of Black men are what causes these issues.

Good questions. A lot kept quiet and waited. Some may have changed. It’s always been a struggle.
While researching a book on the Kennedy assassination, I came upon the story of a klansman who actually saved the life of JFK and MLK at least once by informing the FBI about racists plotting to kill them. He was against civil rights but also didn’t support the violent tactics. He risked his life to be an informant, tho he also could have done it for money. Still it’s an interesting question – how many whites in the klan were secretly informing the authorities on potential violence? Not many but there were a few.
I explored the topic here – https://toughquestionsweb.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/can-the-story-of-a-kkk-leader-turned-informant-help-guide-us-out-of-apparent-racial-turmoil/

Thank you for bringing this profoundly horrific, racist society to light!! I am a white woman in my late 40’s, who is deeply saddened and embarrassed by the way these white people acted and still act. It breaks my heart! I am a Singer/Songwriter, militant activist for civil rights, LBGTQ rights, minimalist and militant environmentalist. You are so correct when you say “whites need to stop being racist NOW”! Fuck the latent apologies a million years later from these American terrorists. My Father worked for JFK and thankfully taught myself and my siblings tolerance and open mindedness. We watched “Roots”and “The Color Purple” when I was very young! I cried for hours after that. I, in turn, taught my Daughter the same tolerance of multi-culturism. She is a militant activist for civil rights and LGBTQ community as well! For this I am grateful! Tolorance has been passed down three generations now in my family. Education and going beyond revisionist history is so necessary NOW! Again thank you for your intelligence, insight and wisdom on this deeply infected, racist society we call America, “the land of the free”, what a disappointing contradiction! Peace and blessings to everyone, even that ugly bitch tomi lahren, she doesn’t even deserve capital letters!!!!

Klancesters!!! Really !! I am not to blame for what the generations before me did! I do not apologize I was not there! we need to move forward together as people not colors as long as people dwell on what the last generations did we will never move forward!

I was a bit confused by “The empty claims of colorblindness while still acknowledging and observing color differences.” Even color blind people can see the dark to light scale – that some people have different shades of skin, hair, eyes. It IS NOT racist to observe that somebody else has darker or lighter skin than you. It IS racist to assume that there is some difference in that person’s character based on the shade of their skin. Or that all people with a certain shade of skin behave in the same manner. Maybe the author meant “….acknowledging and observing that people’s behavior is based on skin color”?

Just a small question, not to cause harm, but to create inward reflection.

Many times I read or hear POC quickly ask or say “where would you have been in this picture?/do you think you would’ve helped or just joined in?” In a condescending tone.

This pushes the ability to elevate and grow away from the conversation. Majority of people in these conversations were not in those moments. We’ve read, learned, heard stories, but didn’t love in it. POC are still on the receiving end of injustices, there’s no doubt. However, as human beings we need to believe in the smalls signs of hope and growth. Such as when no POC say things like they are “colorblind, against racism, anti-hate”. Positive reactions and encouraging comments are what will help grow the movement. Negativity only feeds and fuels the beast.

Sometime in the past several months – I can’t remember exactly when, as I am old and dotty as hell – I shared a post having to do with one of the DickTator’s latest atrocities, which was unusual as I almost never even read them, let alone share them. But, this one struck a chord and so I shared it with a comment that said basically what you have said here in a much more elegant and knowledgeable manner than I, an old white woman, ever could. As I recall, I wrote that, believing as I do – that something good or worthy of notice comes out of all events, no matter how heinous – there was, in fact, an upside to the election of Trump. What possible good came out of that unimaginably horrible event, you might ask…it tore the mask off of the racism that has always been festering deep in the souls of humans since time immemorial – tribalism at its naked best. By his outrageous hate speech, the POTUS made it OK to say what had always been on the minds and in the hearts of all downtrodden people – people who were created, impoverished in order to drive wedges of ignorance and mistrust between them so that they could be more easily controlled, thereby rendering them incapable of understanding their fellows in the exact same situation, but with a different color of skin or religion or sexual identity…any little crumb to make them “different”.
Now that the terrifying face of racism has been exposed, now that the light has been shone upon it, now that the ugliness of ignorance is there for all to see, maybe now we can finally have “the conversation” on a level playing field with all previously hidden agendas out there on the table. It won’t be civilized or at all constructive – hell, it might likely be a blood bath – in the beginning, but the longer humans are able to suffer together and voice their fears and true feelings, the quicker they come to realize that their “differences” are all silly, imaginary ideas sold to them by the propagandists of the controllers.
So, it was either the election of Trump, or an invasion from Mars to get us all to pull together and take back our human and civil rights to combat them…I think that the former will turn out to be less destructive of Mother Earth. Although, the DickTator is running a VERY close second!!

That’s a lie we black people were going to be free anyway didn’t no white man help us do shit, the were free blacks from the north that fought for freedom white people that new it was wrong came along. Bottom line Nat Turner

They remain trapped inside the prison of the oppressor mentality. The oppressor is just as enslaved as the oppressed. Most never received or sought any form of counseling, and if they did achieve any sort of rehabilitation from being a bigot, racist, imperialist or Klan member, it came because their children liberated themselves from their infernal, vile doctrine and unhealthy environment or had the help of a strong-willed person of color that married, co-parented or achieved coitus with their children and in order to love their grandchild, they had to face their demons, enough to go forward, but seldom looking back to do the healing work or being accountable for their past crimes.

I have assisted about 10 old ass curmudgeons to shed their cloak of ignorance and bigotry to face their past and actually become really cool people. I only did this because they either were family or would be around my kids and it was my form of service. The alternative would have been shunning them or hurting them. It wasn’t an easy process at all but worth it.

I did a song talking to black and white folk about how to stop perpetuating our plight by helping the puppet masters by killing ourselves and falling prey to the plots and traps that lie in wait for us to keep us divided since Bacon’s rebellion. Listen if you wish. Study it if you are interested.

This article had such a promising title, but none of the factual substance I was eagerly anticipating. I feel really let down.

On the other hand, it’s good to be informed of the rumors and biases of others, because it does provide usable data. It doesn’t have to be logical, factual, reasonable or fair. It can be emotional, ambiguous, exaggerated and unsupported / uncited, and still have a lot of truth that deserves some attention. Your experience matters, and what you make of it tells us a lot about you and the pain that we should all work to repair.

I still really wish I could read what actually happened to the racist whites from the civil rights era. Sounds like a fascinating study!

Good article. It fits with my own observations and experience. But not everyone is silent about their racist families. I, for one, rebelled against it even as a child, to the point that an uncle beat the crap out of me for questioning him about his Klan membership and why was he so proud of it.

I am white, as in not one drop, paint me with a crayons, white. I am Scandinavian, Irish, and French, with nothing…and I mean NOTHING…else mixed in. I also come from a very racist background on my grandfather’s side. He came from a long line of “Good I’m Southern boys” out of Louisiana and Mississippi, and he never had any pretense of any sort of equality between the races. This was a constant source of conflict between us growing up.

You asked what happened to all the old racists; they are still here, and still as racist, and, as pointed out before, feeling vindicated and energized by the election of the Persimmon in Chief. We are seeing a little bit of a resurgence in Idaho (though I live nowhere near Hayden Lake, so I can’t speak as to THAT area).

My own children are biethnic; their father is Mexican Indian and Navajo. They have had supposed adults tell them they can’t wait for Trump to send their welfare grubbing asses back to Mexico (my kids have never been on Welfare). Their lockers, along with more than a few others, were decorated with Trump posters right after the election.

The genteel, “colorblind” racists you speak of are no longer hiding it, but are feeling empowered to wear their hatred on their sleeves.

Personally, I think the worst thing we ever did was create the fallacy of colorblindness. The word alone suggests a societal homogeny, which simply doesn’t exist in this country, as it shouldn’t. I’m not colorblind. I see Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Portguese, and all the different cultures and traditions in all their richness. We lose so much of what we can learn from each other by pretending we are all the same. We aren’t, and there is nothing wrong with that.

As a 5′ tall, green eyed, red headed, straight white female, I will never know what it is like to be a person of color, or gay, or anything but what I am. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an understanding, or I can’t call bullshit, or I can’t tell some jackass that I will kick his fucking teeth right down his throat if he threatens my daughter’s for simply being who they are.

I apologize for the diatribe, but you are right. Many of us come from racism, and the different time, different place excuse doesn’t work. If we don’t recognize and deal with our own histories first, we cannot deal with the much larger issues of social and judicial inequities in our society.

I can’t believe y’all found one questionable picture and want to derail the facts of the history before the picture was taken. When have you helped somebody by dragging their bloody body by the arms. If they was helping the black man would have been carried over the white army guys shoulders just like in the movies.

See Jim Auctmutey’s book “Class of ’65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness.”
It provides a different answer to the question you thoughtfully pose. Auctmutey’s answer is one of reconciliation that can come in the most unlikely of places. Reconciliation is not complete, of course, nor will it ever be, but this story provides proof that people can change and it provides hope that we will one day live out Dr. King’s dream.

The origional Americans were not white people ..they are the white people who came here and abused the Natives and even made them apply for cirizenship..it is crazy how everyone in America except a small few 100% native american came from immigrants of this country..So none of them have a right to be prejudice

If Nelson Mandela, who put his life at risk to make circumstances better for all South Africans, evading the hangman’s noose for 27 years of hard labor in prison, could move to heal post-apartheid South Africa with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that forgave those who confessed, then I have no doubt that African Americans can confront inhuman indignity with the dignity of humanity in Mandela’s footsteps.

The main thing missing from the South Africa process was reparations, an omission that must be corrected here.

Oprah did a show on the people shown in pics during the Civil Rights Movement. She had a few people that are in the mob on her stage. It was very interesting to hear their reasoning back then and how they currently felt. You maybe able to find the episode on YouTube.